Attention!!! Pro Sports Daily will be down on Wednesday morning from 5:00am - 7:00am eastern time for database maintenance. All Sports Direct Inc. properties will be down during this scheduled outage.
Sorry for any inconvenience that this outage may cause.

If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

His rules, his decisions: That's the Greg Schiano way with Tampa Bay Buccaneers

By Stephen F. Holder

The Bucs, like all NFL teams, begin practice with a set of stretching and calisthenics routines. In the past, you'd usually find players on the field ready to go, on time, lined up by position.

Except for one: Kellen Winslow.

The tight end typically ambled out of the building about 15 minutes into practice, taking his place alongside teammates as individual drills began. No one ever explained what Winslow was doing all that time, but most reporters assumed he had a different prep routine related to his delicate knees.

Winslow also got most Wednesdays off from practice to help preserve his knees for game day.

The point?

If you know anything about new coach Greg Schiano, you're aware he likes things done his way. And no one could be sure Winslow, heading into his ninth season, would fully accept that, which is widely believed to have been a factor in the team trading him Monday to the Seahawks.

It seems every important decision is being made by Schiano. He made the call to release S Tanard Jackson, who six months earlier received a hero's welcome back after a yearlong drug suspension.

Schiano's influence even extends to trivial matters, such as when and how players are permitted to give interviews. (Schiano, in a team meeting, instructed players to stop taking calls from reporters.)

April's draft offered other examples. First-round pick Doug Martin is exactly the type of running back Schiano said he prefers. Later in the draft, the team selected two players Schiano had coached against while at Rutgers, Najee Goode and Keith Tandy, both of West Virginia.

This is not necessarily bad, as long as Schiano makes the right calls and the team wins. But it's different.

Tampa Bay's recent head coaches, including Tony Dungy and Jon Gruden, haven't wielded that kind of absolute authority. Maybe Gruden did for a while after his Super Bowl XXXVII victory, but by the end of his tenure, GM Bruce Allen had usurped some of his juice.

After the 2007 draft, when seven of the team's 10 picks were defensive players, the offensive-minded Gruden joked about conceding to Allen and defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin.

We must assume Schiano's apparent autonomy was granted by the Glazers when the owners hired him. It also changes significantly the role of GM Mark Dominik, who often had the final say on matters with fired coach Raheem Morris. Now his role seems more of an executor than a decision-maker.

Again, not good or bad, just different.

The Bucs' model is not typical. Even coaches with the stature of the Giants' Tom Coughlin, the Packers' Mike McCarthy and the Chargers' Norv Turner share the decision-making with general managers.

The Patriots' Bill Belichick, the Seahawks' Pete Carroll and the Redskins' Mike Shanahan are some of the few coaches who have comparable clout to Schiano, which puts the first-time NFL coach in pretty select company.

So the next time the Bucs make a bold decision, there will be little doubt who pulled the trigger.

KEEP AN EYE ON: Though it could be temporary, LB Rennie Curran often has been running with the first team during practices, continuing his attempt to restart his career. The 2010 third-round pick of the Titans spent last season on the sideline after Tennessee cut him. The former Georgia standout is 23 and seems a good fit at weak-side linebacker, where he is lining up. Rookie Lavonte David, on second team, could eventually assume the starting role.

NOT DONE YET? The Bucs have roughly $12 million in salary cap space remaining and must be mindful with big expenditures looming, such as QB Josh Freeman's contract extension. But additional free agent signings can't be ruled out, Schiano said. One position to monitor is defensive end now that Da'Quan Bowers has a torn Achilles tendon.

Throughout this offseason, it seems Greg schiano has been pulling the strings at One Buc Place. While there's no concrete evidence for that assumption, there's a lot of circumstantial evidence. There's the influx of former Rutgers players on the roster and the change in philosophy that included the sudden addition of veteran free agents. Perhaps most telling of all, the Buccaneers added former coach Butch Davis in an undetermined front office role. Butch Davis is a Greg Schiano guy, and his presence in the front office can only take away from Schiano's power.

When the Glazers fired Raheem Morris in January, they didn't fire Dominik - but they didn't offer him a lot of support, either. In fact, they made it clear that he could lose final control over the roster to a head coach. All in all, it's easy to assume that Dominik has lost quite a bit of authority over the past few months. That's exactly what Stephen Holder did in article published in the Tampa Bay Times today.

If that is indeed the way it works in Tampa Bay these days, I would be pretty disappointed. Placing total control of an organization in one person's hands has only rarely worked in the NFL, and it has blown up in a coach's face much more often. A coach and a general manager have different ways of looking at a roster, with GMs being much more concerned with the long-term prospects of the franchise, while coaches often look at just the next year. Coaches also evaluate players differently from general managers.

All of this produces natural conflicts, which is not a bad thing. But if the coach is ultimately the one who gets to decide on everything, the result is a roster built for the short term, and one that collapses after a few years. The Bucs saw the result of short-term roster building throughout most of Jon Gruden's tenure, for instance.

Of course, we don't actually know whether Greg Schiano has final say. There's one other, simple explanation: Mark Dominik listens to Schiano more than he did to Morris. When Morris was coach, he didn't have a lot of input on which players would be acquired and which ones would be retained. If it had been up to Raheem, Barrett Ruud would still be a Buccaneer, for instance. With Schiano, this is certainly different, as many of Schiano's guys have been added to the roster over the past few months.

Is this simply a case of a general manager listening to his coach, or is Dominik being overruled? It's impossible to say at this point.

I know a lot of you guys have probably already read this from last week, but just in case you haven't:

Bucs WR Arrelious Benn is running with the third-team offense at OTAs.

Vincent Jackson and Mike Williams are the starters, as expected. Preston Parker and Sammie Stroughter are running with the second team. Benn isn't going to have a major role in the Bucs offense this season. Dynasty owners faced with a roster crunch should think about cutting ties with the 2010 second-rounder.

KEEP AN EYE ON: Though it could be temporary, LB Rennie Curran often has been running with the first team during practices, continuing his attempt to restart his career. The 2010 third-round pick of the Titans spent last season on the sideline after Tennessee cut him. The former Georgia standout is 23 and seems a good fit at weak-side linebacker, where he is lining up. Rookie Lavonte David, on second team, could eventually assume the starting lineup.

This excites me. I'm glad they're at least giving Rennie a shot and making Lavonte work for his shot to start. I was worried Rennie would get lost in the mix & tossed aside. With the two of them competing, we'll have two high quality young playmakers at that spot for years to come. They'll keep each other healthy & make an impact on ST too.

Buccaneers OC: Schiano Is Similar To Coughlin
27th May, 2012 - 8:10 pm
NFL.com - The Buccaneers are hoping to find a diamond in the rough in new head coach Greg Schiano.

Offensive coordinator Mike Sullivan delivered high praise for the former Rutgers coach during an interview with Sirius XM NFL Radio.

"Coach Schiano is in many ways similar to (Tom) Coughlin, from the standpoint of very, very organized and detailed and things like discipline and structure and organization being at a premium," Sullivan said.

"I think he's very bright. And I think he's someone that has brought a concept of family." [READ]

Benn is way better than those cats, I hope this is just speculation or will change. He has played well in his first two seasons, and is way better than Sammie and Preston.

I am sorry, I want him (Benn) to succeed, however Benn has not came anywhere near playing to the level commissariat with his draft position. If he does not step it up, he will soon be labeled a bust. I know I am being harsh, I get it, he had a Knee injury, but you know what? The NFL is harsh. Case and point TO's last season was stellar yet he is unemployed and Moss the quitter found work easily and his last season numbers where a joke. Bottom line, Benn needs to step up or step out.....

According to NFL.com's Jason La Canfora, free agent DT Albert Haynesworth may get a "looksee" from the Rams.

La Canfora made the disclosure in an off-handed tweet reply, so it's possible he's just connecting dots and not passing along sourced info. Haynesworth's best seasons, did come under Jeff Fisher in Tennessee, and Fisher hasn't publicly ruled out a reunion. Haynesworth still held his own in limited snaps as a run-stopper last season, but it's possible not even Fisher will be willing to deal with the constant headaches that typically follow the soon-to-be 31-year-old defensive tackle.

Do you think we would bring him back on a cheap salary as DT depth as Price and McCoy have injury issues?